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The barometer data are collected annually from the urban areas that are members of EMTA. These urban areas can continuously update their data for the most recent year or previous years. These updates are reflected in the dashboards presented here and in the downloadable dataset in the opendata section. 

Urban areas are the EMTA members. These areas include a main city and its surrounding suburbs, where the urban area manages the transportation network.

EMTA member urban areas collect data for the following indicators:

Population. The total number of inhabitants in the urban area.

Surface: Area measured in km² for the entire urban area.

GDP: ​​The gross domestic product of the urban area.

Network lines: the number of public transport lines in the urban area’s scope.

Journeys per day in the area. It’s the total number of journeys in the urban area on an average day,  including all travel purposes and all modes of transport (not only public transport). 

A journey is made of one or several boardings that enable the movement from a meaningful origin (e.g. home) to a specific destination (e.g. office) with a single purpose (e.g. going to work). 

Modal shares. The percentage of journeys in the urban area that are undertaken by public transport, motorized vehicle, cycling or walking.

Car ownership rate. It’s the number of cars per 1000 inhabitants. It’s the number of privately owned automobiles in the area. divided by the number of inhabitants in the same area and multiplied by 1000.  

Boardings. A boarding is a movement using a single transport mode. Eg. If someone makes an interchange from one bus to another, this counts as 2 boardings. Every boarding of any public transport vehicle counts as 1 boarding.

Vehicle-kilometre.The number of kilometres travelled by all vehicles (trains, trams, metros, buses, etc.) in an urban area to provide public transport services.

Operating Costs. Expenses for operating all modes of transport managed by the urban area. It's the annual service operation cost of public transport in the urban area for all services in the scope of the area. Operating costs include expenditure on staff (including social security contributions and pensions), energy expenditure, purchases of external goods and services (including subcontracting), vehicle maintenance expenditure , miscellaneous costs (e.g. rental), financial costs, depreciation expenditure, taxes and duties. It does not include special maintenance or investment programs for infrastructure and vehicles.

Revenues from tickets sales. Income from ticket sales for all modes of transport managed by the urban area.

Monthly pass price. The cost of a monthly pass for an adult allowing travel throughout an entire urban area.

Average distance. The average distance travelled by public transport users, each time they use a mode of transport. This value does not account for transfers.

Occupancy. Distance-weighted average occupancy of vehicles. It’s the number of kilometres actually travelled by public transport users divided by the number of kilometres covered by public transport vehicles.  This ratio provides a measure of transport efficiency and utilisation. It also reflects how well the transportation system's capacity is being used. High values mean the system effectively meets passenger demand without excessive vehicle kilometres.

Number of vehicles in bus fleets, per propulsion system. The propulsion systems are classified as: 

• Gas, diesel =  Diesel Euro VI, Diesel Euro III-V including EEV and older Diesel, Gas including CNG and LPG

• Hybrid electric = Plug-in hybrid electric and other hybrid electric vehicles.

• Electric = Trolleybus, battery-electric vehicle with depot charging, battery-electric vehicle with opportunity charging.

• Hydrogen =  Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle

• Biodiesel, biogas = biodiesel and biogas vehicles. 

The data are collected with a one-year delay. For example, 2023 data are collected at the beginning of 2024. However, some urban areas only have provisional values for the most recent year. They can still share these provisional data in the dashboard and downloadable datasets to avoid delaying the publication of the previous year's results. In such cases, the data are marked as "provisional" in the database. The opendata file displays this "provisional" tag next to the relevant values. Urban areas can update their data and add or remove the "provisional" tag at any time.

For each indicator, the value at the EMTA zone level is the sum of the member urban areas that reported a value for that indicator. In other words, the urban areas included in the EMTA totals vary from one indicator to another. In this dashboard, we present ratios between different indicators at the EMTA zone level. Each ratio is established using a sample of different member urban areas that have reported values for both indicators in the ratio. The variable sampling of urban areas included in the EMTA totals makes it impossible to compare temporal values at the EMTA level.

The values in this file are specific to the scope of each urban area. The scope of an urban area includes the list of transport modes it operates, for which it can report at least costs, revenues, boardings, and vehicle-kilometres.

Each urban area reports its indicators for some or all transport modes within its scope, or for the total of all modes within its scope. No "total" value represents only a part of the scope. The total values presented for each indicator cover all transport modes included in an urban area's scope.

For this reason, some indicators are only available for specific modes in certain urban areas, or sometimes only the total for all modes combined is available.

Some urban areas only report a portion of the indicators, depending on their data availability.

The scope of an urban area can change over time. New transport modes may be introduced, or data sources may disappear, leading to the removal of certain transport modes from the reporting scope. Similarly, the geographical boundaries of an urban area may change over time, affecting the population, covered area, etc.

Therefore, temporal changes at the level of each urban area should be studied cautiously, ensuring the continuity of the covered transport modes and the consistency of the geographical area. Moreover, the list of urban areas participating in the barometer changes annually, making it impossible to compare aggregated results over time at the EMTA level. Variations over time in the sum of EMTA members' values for any indicator cannot be interpreted. The significantly different sizes of member urban areas make using average values not recommended.

Yes, you can download the barometer data from the Opendata section of this site and use them for your analyses. Your use of the data must comply with the usage license: you must cite the source of the data, not transform or distort them, and not use them for commercial purposes.

For any questions regarding the barometer data, please contact caroline@with-modality.com, who is in charge of maintaining these data.